To Sir by Rachell Nichole Page B

relationship is usually the need to be yourself, to be comfortable. Doms need to be in control the way you need to write, whereas subs need to be controlled.”
    She tried to take notes as he talked, she really did, but she couldn’t stop staring at the way he formed his words, at the way his lips moved sensually over each syllable, almost purring.
    “That doesn’t really explain anything, you know.”
    He groaned, picking up a napkin from the holder on the table between them and fiddling with it. “There’s not necessarily a why, a motivation behind it for a lot of people. It’s like they’re just hardwired that way. You’re either kinky or you’re not. The same way that you’re either gay or you’re not.”
    “So it’s not like the Kinsey scale of sexuality? There aren’t, like, two ends of the spectrum—totally gay and totally straight, and everyone is pretty much in the middle?”
    He twisted the napkin tighter in his fingers. “Well, maybe. So let’s put nuns on one end of that spectrum, then the vanillas—you know, people who only like straight sex, and by straight I don’t mean not gay; I mean sex without any kind of kink. Think like total-missionary, once-every-six-months, and blowjobs-on-birthdays kind of vanilla. Then as you move more toward the middle, you get people who like different positions, more spice, maybe ménages, and a bit of tie-me-up, tie-me-down with silk scarves and soft blindfolds. Then as you keep moving, you get to people who like the harder stuff, like whips and nipple clamps, spanking, debasement, orgasm denial, reward and punishment. Then all the way out here are the real edge players who use blades and fire and stuff.”
    Liz shivered. Fire and blades. How could you ever trust anyone like that? She started drawing the scale, in a completely nerdy bell-curve kind of way, trying to slow her pounding heart when she thought of a blade pressing against her skin while she was utterly at someone’s mercy. According to Chase, most people fell somewhere in the middle, between vanilla and kinky as hell.
    “For some, the line is here.” He reached over and traced an invisible line down the middle of her bell curve with his thick index finger. “They’re mostly vanilla, with a little slap and tickle, and they won’t go any further. For a lot of people who come on the scene the first time, they fall somewhere in here.” He rubbed back and forth from the middle to halfway through the second half of the curve in a sensual slide that made her throat go dry. She could picture that finger rubbing back and forth like that along her skin, and she clenched her thighs together, holding the heat at the center of her body close.
    “Sometimes they push themselves and find they’re actually out here.” He captured her hand in his, and she let him trace her finger to the outlying edges of her curve. “And some people think it’s cool and trendy and dangerous to pretend they lie here.” He brought her finger back toward the middle. “When really, they’re way the hell over here.” He jerked her hand all the way across the page to where she’d written Nun . The soft paper teased the pads of her fingers with every movement.
    “Others who have been taught how evil and dirty it is to want to be spanked spend their entire lives miserably stuck in Vanilla Land.” He circled her finger around the word. “They never admit to themselves, let alone their partners, what they want, what they need . And then they have unfulfilling sex for eternity. It’s sad.”
    She’d been watching his large, calloused hand as it held hers captive and skittered across the page. But now she looked up and locked gazes with him. His penetrating stare seemed to see deep into her soul, and she tried to shrink back from it. He didn’t let her. Was he talking about her? Her sex life wasn’t unfulfilling. It was nonexistent.
    “Okay, so I get the whole where-sexual-preferences-lie scale thing. I understand the